All about Hong Kong

 Hong Kong: The First Chronicle

     This thread will be helpful for you if in the future, are planning to go to Hong Kong. I hope you're willing to join me on my travel adventure upon engaging in another culture very distant from our own for the first time.

HK Food

Noodles on local HK restaurant

     Hong Kong style foods flourish the Philippines, not to mention the stalls of shomai and the noodles, which I really adore. Ordering food is not the best part of our food tripping, imagine  yourself in my situation, hungry as we are, we have to communicate with the waitress that do not speak english! It was totally challenging with our roaring tummy. The first local delicacy we ate was some sort of noodle (I don't know what it is called but I categorize them all as noodles.) It was good. Served in a huge bowl which can be served to three people of my size.  Full of pork chops, which is tender, thick noodles and the most noticeable of them all, what seems to be an unlimited supply of Chinese cabbage. It actually feels like they are serving salad bundled with noodles.

     It is hard not to notice that their McDonald's are extremely cheap when compared to ours. In fact, Coca Cola is CHEAPER than a Big Mac, yes, that double patty, triple bun, TLC, burger. In addition to that madness, the fries are also cheap, Php20+ for a medium fries! I know right, its a darn deal. That is one of the two reason we have done half of our eating routine there, the other being, as I stated earlier, for their not-so-appetizing foods.

Big Mac in downtown HK

     Lets tackle their drinks, water is expensive, in a sense that it is a necessity. In fact, soft drinks like Pepsi and the likes are much more affordable than water, as 1 liter of water is equivalent to 2 liters of Pepsi! I only noticed this when I drop by to a local grocery store in the last day of our trip! Tea is everywhere, I know that you know how torturous that may be. You can observe that even the local's water containers have atleast one tiny sack of tea to accompany it. I like lemon iced, actually it's my favorite drink, but plain and lonely tea? Cmon! Give me a break. I have stated that Coca Cola is expensive when compared to the Big Mac, so why? The only reason I can clearly observe is... IT'S SUPER TASTY! It was delicious and as an effect, addicting. A little trivia, their Royal is called Fanta, so don't expect to find Royal in the beverage section of the grocery.

     Foods in Hong Kong in general is the biggest disappointment I had in my trip, to be the supposedly food haven I dreamt of. I assumed that food stalls are everywhere and ideally all tasty, to my disappoint, it was not, not at all. The noodles and the fried rice are visually enticing but the moment it touched the tip of your tongue it taste weird, I guess you should be a month of stay there before you feast and appreciate the goodness of their food.

HK Shopping

     It is prominent that Hong Kong is synonymous with shopping. I am here to actually state that it surely is accurate. Let me change that statement to give emphasis, Hong Kong is Shopping! It is true enough that I myself was lure by their merchants. As soon as you took your first step in Hong Kong stores will shine it's bright neon lights that indirectly says "SALE".

     I am a thrifty person, but I am not an exception to the rule, I like shopping especially when they attract me with their dirt cheap deals. As a proof, I actually bought a number of items like HK shirts, key chains, flash drives, whitening strips (not available in the Philippines) and a Bag! I should have bought more but as a common hindrance to shopping, money was short. I would have bought a ton of stuffs like shoes and electronic stuffs that seems heaven for the nerds.

Tsim Tsa Tsui

     To give you an idea of how cheap the items there are, I'll tell you the value of some items I bought. Let's start with the flash drives, a piece of dslr-style flash drive with a metal casing and has a capacity of 8gb was only for a cheap price of Php50+! Rubber shoes are also cheap, original Nike rubber shoes only carry a price tag of Php2,000+! Consider it cheap bcoz it was being sold at an authorized outlet.

Umbrella Vending Machine

     It is fun to shop if you know how to haggle. Haggling is my thing, so ALL the items I bought was not the retail price but rather a portion of it. As an example, a sales lady offered me a bag for HKD $280 I got it for HKD $150! She couldn't resist b'coz I was about to leave the stall (pretending to be not interested) then she grabbed my offer and a good day for me.

     Shopping was not all that ideal. Of course, in a country where inhabitants are mostly grumpy, stall owners will evolve into monsters the moment you asked for a price of an item and you have no intention in buying it. I personally have experienced this, I asked for a price of those adorable key-chains but it was expensive for me, but in fact was already cheap, I said no, then rest is history, she let her voice out with some Cantonese language that I couldn't understand. All I can hear was "blah blah blah" but I can totally feel her anger. In the end, I still didn't bought it (hahaha!). I just brisk walked as fast as I can.

     As far as Shopping goes, It is definitely a valid reason to come back to Hong Kong any day. There are cons but heck! It was cheap.

HK City Life

     The Skyscrapers actually defined how economically advanced Hong Kong is. You can never deny the beauty of their sky even on the absence of the sun due to the luminescence of their neon lights. The malls are all over the place. Well for me, the Hong Kong is a mall on itself because the streets were crowded by outlet stores everywhere. Almost all the typical components of the mall are there minus the air conditioned enclosures. The city life of Hong Kong can easily be forgotten due to the fact that you can simulate the experience here in Manila. The only experience that stand out among the rest is their escalators, it was fast, but in a good way and they will not occupy the left side of the escalator unless in a hurry. They are super organized, I hope that mentality can soon be applied here. 

HK Transportation

Cable Car with my Sister (Keep your Smiles)

     The mode of transportation that mostly led us to our destination is the MTR. This train transport is huge, branching out nearly anywhere in Hong Kong. We have utilized this transportation 80% of the time we need to be on our next destination. The ambiance is the same as our LRT line 2 plus some additional air conditioning system and most of the time useless television (which is boring and incomprehensible)  in a portion of the price. It was expensive but we don't have any choice, we are not familiar with their bus systems.

 Be sure that you have read the previous thread Off to Hong Kong.

Claimer: I own ALL the photos! (l0l)